


Child O' Mine

by daemonluna, Ophelia Coelridge (daemonluna)



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
Genre: Gen, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-06-12
Updated: 1998-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daemonluna/pseuds/daemonluna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/daemonluna/pseuds/Ophelia%20Coelridge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of Pluto, Queen Serenity, Small Lady, mothers, daughters, and sacrifices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Child O' Mine

"Goodbye, mother." Neo-Queen Serenity closed her eyes. It had been hours gone and more since Small Lady had left, to go back to her past. It seemed strange, phrased like that. But no matter, her daughter was gone, and when next she saw her, she would not be the little girl who had left. And still her formal farewell echoed in her mother's ears.

"Goodbye, Small Lady," she had replied, just as solemnly, every inch a queen. For that was what she was now.

"Goodbye, Chibi-Usa," she whispered, words hanging in the empty throne room, sliding over the marble, twisting around the arching columns. "I'm jealous," she whispered to herself, the sheer absurdity shocking a surprised giggle from the Queen of Crystal Tokyo.

"I'm jealous of myself... for being there when she grows up. Even though... I was."

She stopped, gnawing her bottom lip reflectively, puzzled gaze much more reminiscent of a certain pigtailed teenager than Her Majesty Neo-Queen Serenity. But only for a moment, before the years slipped back into place.

"She must go." It was Serenity who spoke now, calm certainty her authority. "My daughter. My... daughter." Her voice caught. "But I wonder..." The words were less than a whisper now, the barest exhalation of breath. "If.... if I'm a bad mother."

"No." The single word dropped leaden into the hissing whispers that swirled around the dais, Serenity's musings still hanging in the air.

"Pluto. I thought you'd left," Serenity said, lifting up a composed mask to the world.

"No. You are not a bad mother, Serenity," she said firmly. "Believe me. I--I have known far, far worse."

"Why--"

Pluto cut her off with an upraised hand. "You must believe in your actions, Serenity. And above all, you must not doubt your daughter, or your own love for her."

"Did you come back, just to tell me that? Or is there more?" Her clear eyes flickered to the window, and the glittering sprawl of Crystal Tokyo spread out below. "I had hoped now we would have peace, for a time."

"Serenity," Pluto said, meeting her gaze with eyes full of the barren realm between time. "Your doubt, it could drive her from you. It could kill her."

A moment, only a moment... she reached forward... if the child believed... The future unreeled beneath her control, into the most likely seeming.

 _  
"You don't love me!" cried a rebellious adolescent. "Why should I have to listen to you? You only had me to save your precious kingdom! All you ever did was use me!"_

Somewhere in Crystal Tokyo, years hence, a door slammed.

Time unwound behind her eyes further still, insecurities festered, and Small Lady grew into Black Lady in truth...

"You will lose her," Pluto said harshly.

For an instant, something stirred in her gaze. But only for a second, and what is a fleeting second to one who has watched millennia pass her, after all? "You did what you must, and it _was_ right, Serenity. Don't attempt to convince her of this, but rather, yourself," she said more gently.

A pensive silence from the Queen. Then, after careful consideration, she spoke. "I will try. I... do understand you, Pluto. I may not see the why, but know you would never intervene without good reason." Serenity met the eldest Senshi's timeless eyes, and caught them in the bottomless blue crystal of her own. "Leave me now, please." Authority over-rode uncertainty, and then she hesitated. "You've given me much to think about, all at once." Her lips quirked up in a smile, but her eyes were somber.

"Yes, my Queen," Pluto said mildly, and stepped back into the corridor between times. There was the brief impression of a great set of doors, and then, that too was gone. Serenity was alone again.

* * * 

Outside of time once again, Pluto felt the future ripple, and settle more firmly into its proper course. Not just the outcome she preferred, but the way it should be. She could feel that, in her blood, as deep as her bones, and deeper still. Really, she mused, sometimes if you caught the problem soon enough, a few well-placed words could make a world of difference. And the future shifted again.

* * * 

On one side of the window, the city of Crystal Tokyo glittered golden in the orange fires of the setting sun. On the other side of the window, two women, one seated, one standing, watched the day die. One was the queen of Crystal Tokyo. The other was her mother.

"It's beautiful," Usagi the younger said softly.

"I know," the older said, smiling. She reached up over her shoulder to place a hand atop her daughter's.

Her Majesty Neo-Queen Serenity was old. Very old. Repeated use of the Ginzuishou, the legendary Silver Crystal, had bleached her hair white by the time her daughter reached puberty. Centuries later, Serenity had lived a very long lifetime of being the vessel for the pure magic that had cleansed and created and, yes, destroyed worlds. It had left her looking, not insubstantial, but rather more and more each day as if she was made up of the magic itself. The light and the power blazed from Crystal Tokyo's first queen.

It shone without and within, for all the worlds as if her years in the Crystal's silver flame had burned away the flaws, and quirks, and mortality. Such a fire was never meant to be contained indefinitely by a frail human frame. Her eyes, however, were still the same flawless blue that graced a young girl named Tsukino Usagi so many, many years ago.

"Mama?" said the present Queen, the childish endearment finding its way to her lips easily, despite the silver gilt threading through her pink-tinged hair.

"What is it, Small Lady?" Serenity replied, smiling fondly at the inappropriate nature of the old, old nickname applied to the willowy, regal woman at her side.

 _I love you._ Some things don't need the clumsy fetters of words to be heard. "Nothing, mama."

* * *

"How could you doubt it, my queen?" Pluto said aloud, as the future set itself further to rights. Her words hung in the air, muffled and distorted, ringing odd harmonics to human ears. She paid it no mind. Centuries had passed since she considered herself human.

"You were never a bad mother, Serenity. Not like me."

* * *

Once upon a time, the world was new, or newer, and magic ran much more freely. And spells were cast, and wars were waged. Eventually, it was decided that the great magics, the ones that did create and destroy, and alter the course of nature, must be forbidden, strictly controlled by blood-right and talismans. And from blood given freely, a sacrifice by the members of the great Houses, talismans were created. And even then, she was there. But that, that is another tale entirely.

It had been generations since the greater magics had been declared anathema, despite rumors of mages practicing in secret, and darker whispers of blood taken by force, sacrifices unwilling, and dabblings in the forbidden greater arts, when a young women with years in her eyes passed through a small village in her wanderings. And she met a young man, and he certainly loved her. And although she was far older than any suspected, she was still very young by the terms of what she would be. For a time, she loved him, too. But more time passed, as it tends to do, a child was born, and some secrets are harder to keep than others.

* * * 

"He wanted immortality," she whispered to herself. Her voice fell away into the void between time as if she had not spoken. Maybe she hadn't.

She had loved him once. And had that been the problem? At first, he hadn't known. And then, once he did, when she'd finally told him what she was, is, he'd changed. Not all at once, but over the years. She hadn't noticed at first. But eventually, it was obvious that he was obsessed. He wanted the power that she held, that she was. He wanted immortality.

* * * 

She had been gone for several days, as duty called her away again. She'd suspected he had considered turning to the blacker arts, forbidden as they may be. But she had never thought, never let herself believe, that he would attempt to become immortal. For the price was and is a life of your own blood.

He had not expected her back so soon.

She looked into her daughter's eyes, blank with drugged dreams. With a feather-light fingertip, she traced the symbols, dark drops beading over, carved in cuts just deep enough to draw blood. The candles guttered, and the shadows swooped in an insane dance around the room.

" 't don' hurt, mommy," the little girl slurred.

"I know," she said softly. "Hush, my babe, hush." She rocked the child, part of her numb with the hollow, leaden ache of shock. But the part of her that was Sailor Pluto automatically sorted through the possibilities, and...

No. No, no, no. The dedication had been made... the toxins had leached their way into her bloodstream, and the child would die. When she did, the rite would be complete. There was only one solution. She must die now, before the final incantations had been made. He would gain a small measure of immortality still, it couldn't be helped, but would fall far short of the god-like status he had hoped to buy with her blood.

In her arms, her daughter stirred restlessly, flush with fever and drugs.

"Everything will be all right," she lied gently. The tears ran down her face, salt-water scalding silently. Why didn't I see? Why didn't I _see_? her heart shrieked incoherently.

Her mind knew. There had been no threat to the timestream. All was proceeding as... as it should. She knew, then, which of her powers to use. Not the greater one, oh, no, but in part...

She reached out, and placed a hand on her daughter's chest, fingers splayed. The small heart beat steadily against her palm... and then, she _reached_ , didn't stop but twisted the flow of time for a brief breath... the soft thud of her daughter's pulse stuttered, and stopped.

For a very long instant, she stood there, granite-still. And then....

She screamed, finally, a rasping sound dredged up from the bottom of her soul, that shook and blurred reality. One last ragged breath... She stopped. Her world stopped.

She looked down at the pitifully small corpse she cradled. The body's limp pull in her arms seemed impossibly heavy. Hands shaking with a tremor more felt than seen, a bone-deep shudder, she traced the curve of one baby-round cheek.

The skin was clammy to the touch, cooling fast.

She laid her daughter's body down, her movements gossamer-light as if the soul was still hovering, and could be coaxed back into the stiffening shell.

And she raised her head to face her former lover, and she branded him an oathbreaker, outcast. She watched him scream as the inverted crescent burnt its way through flesh, and charred the bone. She knew, with the certainty of Time, that this was how it must be. Her eyes were empty, as blank as the drugged gaze her daughter had turned upon her before she died. The light would return to those red eyes. But the humanity would not.

* * * 

She would face him years hence, when he rose up against the Moon Kingdom. It would be centuries from now, at the turn of the Silver Millenium; the House of Serenity would come to power. And before the age's dying days, another Queen would banish him until the world's end, and she would watch in silent approval.

And the end would come, and after that, he would return. Another child would be his unwitting pawn, but her, she would live. The child's mother (and herself) would save this little girl. And in the eyes of Small Lady, she saw the spirit she had last seen die eons ago.

* * * 

Many millennia later, another child was born.

It was late one night, or possibly very early in the morning. In the sterile, silent chill of the hour before the sun returns, the high wail of the newly-born called her parents to waking. Again.

"I'll get her this time," the Queen of Crystal Tokyo said muzzily, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed.

"Mmm-hmmm," her husband said, pulling the pillow back over his head, the frequent risings of new parents taking their toll.

Serenity stumbled into the next room, and leaned over the crib, with its border of dancing rabbits stenciled across the headboard. She stared blankly at the stuffed animals and tangle of flannel baby blankets. The empty tangle of baby blankets. But before she could scream, there came a quiet voice from behind.

"She's fine, your majesty," said Pluto mildly. "I have her here."

"Is there something wrong?" Serenity asked, worry sharp in her face and her voice, eyes on the bundle Pluto carried. "Are you--do you need to take her?"

"Oh, no," Pluto reassured her swiftly. "I've just come to pay my respects to the young princess."

"At four-thirty in the morning?" Serenity said in disbelief.

"I wanted an opportunity away from the court, to see the small one on her own," Pluto said vaguely.

"But--"

"Why now?" Pluto smiled slightly. "Grant me this one small trust, Serenity. Go back to bed. This little one will wake you often enough in the next few weeks." She settled herself into the rocking chair next to the window.

"That she will," the Queen said whole-heartedly, stifling a yawn.

"She eventually did sleep through the night," Pluto whispered. Her features held their inscrutable mask, but her eyes were weary with ancient sorrow, gaze turned inward a million years past and more.

Serenity paused in the doorway, and looked thoughtfully at the woman cooing to her child. Then she turned, and gratefully went back to bed.

Small Lady stirred, in the arms of the Senshi of Time and Space, infant face wrinkling. She whimpered slightly, starfish hands clutching, then calmed, and settled, one small fist wrapped in a strand of long, dark green hair. Pluto rocked the chair gently, lulling Small Lady back to a sound sleep.

And she held the baby, both with the deft sureness that comes from experience, and the air of one cradling a miracle so fragile it might vanish in a heartbeat. The window before her looked down on the sleeping sprawl of Crystal Tokyo, as she rocked the infant princess back to sleep. Softly, under her breath, Pluto began to croon a lullaby, in a language the world had not heard since centuries before the Silver Millenium and the birth of the Moon Kingdom. She closed her eyes. A single tear drew a telltale line down her cheek. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled.

"This one, this one will live," she whispered to the familiar weight in her arms. "Sleep well, little one."

Outside the window, the sun began to rise.


End file.
